Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that
star? Get the answers from mySKY--a
fun new astronomy helper from Meade. PROM
ALERT: A profusion of prominences is dancing
along the sun's eastern limb: image.
If you have a solar
telescope, take a look!
COMET 17P/HOLMES:
"The 'Jellyfish Comet' has caught some
small fish," reports Paolo Candy
who took this picture last night from the Cimini Astronomical Observatory
in Soriano, Italy:
The "fish" are the stars of open cluster
NGC 1245 located downstream of Holmes' developing tail. NGC 1245
is a swarm of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stars 800 light years
from Earth. It shows up nicely in 10+ minute exposures of the comet
through amateur telescopes.
Comet 17P/Holmes is no longer the bright naked-eye
object it was when it first exploded in late October. But it remains
an easy target for binoculars,
night
vision goggles and backyard
telescopes. After sunset, point your optics at the constellation
Perseus and scan around for the Jellyfish: sky
map. You can't miss it.
Comet
17P/Holmes Photo Gallery
[Interactive
World Map of Comet Photos]
[sky
map] [ephemeris]
[3D orbit]
[Night
Sky Cameras]
MOON HALO MOVIE: Ice
in high clouds turns ordinary moonlight into beautiful moon
halos. What happens to these halos when clouds are set in motion?
To find out, click on the image below:
Click
to view a 34-minute timelapse movie
"It was fun trying to guess the luminosity of the halo by
watching the clouds coming toward the Moon," says Laurent
Laveder who made the movie in Bretagne France on Nov. 29th.
"I used a Canon
350D to take 68 images 30 seconds apart. Each frame is a 15
second exposure at ISO 800."
more images: from
Jon Hayden of Milwauke, Oregon; from
Stefan Gajdos of Modra, Slovakia; from
Brian Karczewski of Hemet, CA; from
Marsha Adams of Sedona, AZ; from
Mike Caplan of Wadsworth, Illinois.
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